


Movie Night

by threestepssouth



Series: More of a Progression [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Light-Hearted, No Plot/Plotless, One Shot, Trans Character, Trans Peter Parker, but not really, dad tony stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 01:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11863815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threestepssouth/pseuds/threestepssouth
Summary: Peter's taking an abnormally long time in the bathroom... The team votes Tony to check up on him.





	Movie Night

**Author's Note:**

> This just assumes things are hunky-dory after Civil War. It's also part of a series of one shots I haven't yet written. So there'll probably be prequels to this one that'll make this fic make more sense. Things to note since I have written the prequels: Peter's trans, no big deal, Tony knows already. No beta, so general poor content quality and mistakes belong to me. Rated T for language, needles.

Tuesday, 9:23 PM. It was movie night. Or it was supposed to be. An entire Avengers team - sans Vision and Captain America and fucking Bucky Barnes, who were, respectively: on a PR mission in Wisconsin, on a PR mission in Wisconsin, receiving psychiatric care in buttfuck nowhere Wakanda - were practically piled on top of one another on the couch. God bless Pepper for ordering furniture that could actually fit them. Each of the superheroes were in various states of disarray, waiting with rapidly diminishing patience to watch Return of the King.

Sam glanced down at his watch. “Oh, for the love of - it does not take this long to take a shit!”

“What is taking so long?” Wanda asked, fingers drumming absently on the armrest.

Tony strode into the room from the bar, cradling a neat glass of scotch. As soon as he entered, he was struck with the full attention of every single person in the room. The synchronized head turning was so jolting, he found himself immediately defensive.

“Get your beady eyes off me,” he accused, “how am I supposed to know? The camera’s on his suit, not his person!”

“He’s been in the bathroom for a long time, Tony,” Sam reminded him.

“A really long time,” Bug-Man added.

“Too long,” Wanda huffed.

All eyes were still on him. Tony blinked. “Did you guys rehearse this?”

Clint snorted, the first to look away. “He’s a teenager. He’s probably just jerking it and forgot the time. I used to-”

Collective groans went over the crowd as Clint Barton managed to be the grossest somehow-father-figure in the world. Christ. Tony held up a finger. “Do not, I am warning you, do not finish that sentence. He is fifteen and I never want to think about that again.”

Footsteps clapped easily across the concrete floors as someone came in from the kitchen.

“Is that more popcorn?” asked Natasha, glancing at Rhodey’s approaching figure. He was handling two oversized bowls of the stuff, frowning slightly.

“Yeah,” he said, handing the bowls off to her, where it was quickly pounced upon by ferociously hungry superheroes. “I figured since we blew threw the first two bags before the movie even started… where’s the kid?”

“Still not here,” Tony told him, and why did everyone keep staring at him? “Jesus, I’m not his keeper!”

Sam raised a brow, “You kind of are.” Murmurs of agreement swept the room, the sound muffled by their disgusting, popcorn stuffed mouths.

“I hate you all.”

“You know, Tony,” Rhodey began, “It has been a really long time-”

“36 minutes!” What’s-his-face-Man called out.

Rhodey shot What’s-his-face a pointed look. “-Maybe you should go check on him.”

“Wait, you actually think-”

“Yes!” an irritated chorus of agreement rang.

Tony huffed, glaring at the offenders. “Alright, fine, I’ll go check on the kid. But you better save some popcorn for me and I don’t-” he paused in his steps to establish eye contact, slinging two fingers for emphasis, “-mean just the kernels. You save some of the good shit.”

Natasha rolled her eyes at him, but swatted Clint’s hand away when he reached for another handful.

* * *

Kicked out of the living room by unanimous vote, Tony was presently standing in front of a (presumably) locked bathroom door, behind which lay an enhanced teenager doing God knows what for 37 minutes. He was already unhappy about the situation, which was, to put it gently, awkward, but then he remembered that the whole “checking on the kid” thing meant literally talking to him while he was engaged in who-knows-what in the bathroom and his situation grew infinitely less appealing. So yeah, he was living the dream. He definitely wanted to be in this exact location, closed fist hovering an inch away from knocking, right fucking now instead of eating Hawaiian pizza like his doctor warned him against. Who was he to interrupt Peter if he needed some, hem, alone time? Even if it was severely ill-timed alone time, that was just normal teenager stuff.

But what if it wasn’t “just” anything? An insidious thought crept into Tony’s head, a shard of parental paranoia that was becoming increasingly common these days. What if Peter was hurt, or… God forbid worse. His concern wasn’t unjustified; behind the door, the kid wasn’t making one peep, not a miniscule stirring of movement. FRIDAY had said he was in there, and she would have let him know if anything was wrong, but…

“That does it,” Tony hissed, pounding on the door. “Peter? You alive in there? Want to hurry the fuck up with whatever it is you’re doing? Maybe let me in?”

There was a pause. He could hear a short sigh. He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Thank fuck.

“Peter?” He knocked again.

“It’s not locked.” The boy’s voice was somewhat strained, a little dejected, if he wanted to dredge up forgotten SAT vocab.

Well that was an invitation if he’d ever heard one, so Tony swung open the door and practically threw himself into the room.

The sight that greeted him was, well, “Um…”

Peter was hunched over himself on the closed seat of the toilet, half dressed in a t-shirt and boxers, with the points of his elbows drilling red marks on his knees. In his hand was a half-filled syringe. Though his enhanced sense would obviously have alerted him to Tony’s presence, his head jerked up like a marionette when he saw him, colour leaching from his face.

“It’s not heroin, I swear!”

Tony spared a cursory glance at the syringe, gaze following the mess of a situation to the floor. Discarded wrappers, a red sharps container, a crumpled pamphlet of instructions, before finally his eyes landed on Peter’s wide, stricken expression.

“You’re not kidding. I like to think I still know what heroin looks like, shortstack.”

“Um.”

Oh, right, maybe don’t admit to illicit drug use in front of a kid who grew up on DARE. “College was a hell of a ride,” Tony told him by way of explanation, “Anyway, are you going to tell me what’s taking you so long or are we just going to watch this Lord of the Rings bullshit without you?”

“Um.”

Tony cast what he knew to be a thoroughly disapproving glare. “Kid, it’s been-” he tugged back his sleeve to uncover his watch, “literally 40 minutes on the dot, wow, since you’ve been in here, and if we don’t start the movie and order pizza soon I think some, or all, of us might riot. So just cut to the chase, okay? What gives?”

Peter still looked nervous, but now embarrassment was beginning to crawl its way into his features. “Y-you know you don’t have to wait for me, right? I’ve seen it before, you can start it without me.”

Peter Parker, Spider-Man, top 2 percentile in his school, Doormat. Tony fought the urge to roll his eyes and failed. He leaned against the door, causing it to close, and stood there with his arms crossed. Better to make himself comfortable. He might be here awhile.

“You know that’s not the point, right? They’re concerned about you. I mean, Clint totally thinks you’re masturbating but-”

“What? No! Please tell me he doesn’t-”

“Clint’s an idiot, and no one gives a fuck anyway, but the rest of them, of us, wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Well, all that colour that had left him earlier now came back in a roaring red. Peter was blushing from his cheeks to his ears, and he tried to bury his face in his hands, but there was a needle clutched in one of his fists and it was rather difficult to do.

“Oh God…”

“Yeah, I know. Feelings, what a pain. But, you still haven’t answered me. What gives, Spidey?”

Peter glanced uncomfortably at the clutter he’d created on the bathroom tiles. “Um, well, i-it’s Tuesday, Mr. Stark, and I mean, typically it’s May who does this for me, so I don’t… I mean, I have to do this-” he looks meaningfully at the syringe, “every week, but May’s not here and I’ve never done it by myself before and I told her it would be fine but I… I got it this far! It’s just the actual sticking the needle in my leg part that…”

“You look like you’re going to be sick, kid. You’ve seriously never given yourself an injection before? You’ve been on this stuff for how long?”

Peter shrugged. “I know! I know! It’s totally pathetic. Even the doctor thought I should be doing this by myself now, but I just… I don’t know. It’s one thing to fight people and have a building collapse on you-”

“A building collapsed on you? We are so going to talk about this later.”

“Y-yeah, but I mean. I just can’t do it. I can’t give myself a shot. I’m so pathetic.”

“Nah, it’s not pathetic. You should see Bruce getting a medical exam. Is it getting there? Yes, absolutely. Is it sad enough to make a Save the Children infomercial about? You bet. But you’re not pathetic, Peter.”

And gosh, if those little puppy eyes of his weren’t just filling up with warmth just then. Too bad he had to dash it out of him.

“But,” Tony continued, “if you make us miss movie night because you’re too embarrassed to ask for help when you need it or wait a few hours until the movie’s over, then that’s pathetic and I can’t really help you there.”

“I thought it would be better if I did it before the movie. I thought if I had a deadline...” Peter looked crushed.

Well, tits. “Guess not, hey?”

“Guess not.”

Tony sighed. How come no one else got stuck in these situations? Cap was good with stuff like this, and Barton and the motherfucker-who-wrecked-his-suit already had kids. Shouldn’t it be, by all accounts, anyone but him doing the grunt work?

Then again, if he truly minded, he wouldn’t be here. “Look, Peter, do you want me to do it for you? Just the once? Then you can try again... next week when you’re ready?”

He could see the kid mulling it over in his head, but then there was a small smile and a shake of the head. Dammit. “T-that’s just… wow, that’s super nice of you, Mr. Stark, and I’m really grateful for you for, um, offering, and it’s not that I don’t want you to or anything because I’m actually really not looking forward to this but… but I think I need to do this if I’m going to make these last 40 minutes worth it.”

“That’s,” Tony struggled for words, “surprisingly ballsy of you, kid.”

Peter cringed a little, gritting his teeth.

Oh, awkward. “Poor choice of words. Sentiment stills stands. You got this, Peter.”

He watched the kid gather himself up, furrowing his brow and biting at his lip. Peter raised the hand with the syringe in it like he was about to stab himself with it, pinching his thigh with the other hand. Every ounce of concentration was devoted to the plotting the path of the needle. He looked so determined that, if the whole scene was a movie, there would be one heckuva dramatic soundtrack playing.

But then there was a defeated sigh and a frantic shake of the head. “I can’t do it.” Peter dropped his hands to his sides wretchedly, signalling an abrupt end to the imaginary music.

God, he really was dad de facto, wasn’t he? Tony clucked his tongue before awkwardly getting to his knees in a crouch. Once he was more or less level with the sitting kid, he reached out with an uncertain arm and placed it on Peter’s shoulder.

“Would it be better if you were alone? Do you want me to leave?”

Peter didn’t look at him, but he could see how tightly he was squeezing his eyes shut. “P-please don’t. I mean-”

“Then I’ll stay,” Tony assured him, “You got this, kid. FRIDAY, tell him he’s got this.”

The pleasantly artificial voice drew itself from the walls. “You have got this, Peter Parker.”

“Thanks, FRIDAY. She’s right, you know. You can do this. I know you can. So take a deep breath and count to three, because when we get to one you’re going to jab that thing into your leg like you were born to do it- agh, Jesus!”

In the midst of Tony’s speech, Peter had managed to psych himself up and stab, literally stab, himself in the thigh with the syringe. Now the needle was buried in his leg and a trembling hand was holding it there, frozen with shock.

“Um, I- I… there’s a needle in my leg! I did it! Oh my god, it’s inside of me! That’s so weird! I did it! Oh my god, I feel sick…”

“Kid, I’m proud and everything, but don’t you have to actually press it all the way down to make it work?”

“Oh,” said Peter, whose thumb now reticently made its way to the top of the plunger. “Right.”

He pressed down. Time seemed to stop, or get slower, or was it just-

“Why won’t it go any faster!” Peter yelped.

“It’s an extremely viscous substance, whiz kid, wouldn’t you know that by now?!”

“Yeah, I know, it’s just, oh god, this is freaking me out.”

“It’s not your first rodeo, kid. Breathe.”

A few seconds passed.

“I’m done! It’s done! Shit, shit,” he withdrew the needle from his leg with incredible caution, before looking up to Tony with the most endearingly wondrous expression.

“I did it! I can’t believe it! I actually did it! And it only took me like an hour! This is the best day of my life!”

He was practically bouncing in his seat, limbs jetting out like one of those twitchy jumping spiders. Tony recoiled. “Whoah, whoah, cap that thing before you stab somebody with it- again. This place is enough of a biohazard as it is.”

Peter sobered some, enough to flick the cap over the needle and drop it into his sharps bin. “Sorry, it’s just, I actually did it!”

“I told you you could. No biggie, no sweat. And to think, you almost didn’t believe me.”

“Tony, oh my god.” He was not going to get that dazed look off his face anytime soon.

They both got to their feet, Spider-Man a bit out of place in his boxers.

“You need to put a bandaid on that?”

“Oh, right, I almost forgot. Wow, wouldn’t that have sucked?”

Tony handed him the one waiting on the sink counter. It wasn’t strictly necessary, since the injection site rarely bled, but Peter had told him he used bandaids to remind himself which leg had been used last. Apparently chemical engineering web solution and knowing enough physics to swing from buildings was cool, but remembering which leg he needed to stab this week was beyond the realm of possibility.

“Aren’t you a little old for themed stuff?” Tony asked, watching Peter place the lightsabered bandage over the invisible hole in his thigh.

“You asked me that last time. It’s Star Wars. You’re never too old.”

Peter tugged on his sweats, doing a pretty decent job of clearing the garbage from the floor by snatching it with his webbing and slinging it into the can. Tony wasn’t going to comment on the fact that he wore his web-slingers practically 24/7. He was not touching that conversation.

“Ready to head out?”

“I think, yeah.”

Tony reached for the door handle, but just before he opened it he paused to turn towards Peter. “I’m proud of you, kid.”

The returning grin was worth every minute he’d spent waiting for him.

* * *

 

Later, when most of the other Avengers were asleep or sparring (did Natasha ever give it a rest?) it was just him, Rhodey, and Spidey left on the couch. The movie had finished a good twenty minutes ago and Peter was curled up in the corner, snoring softly. Tony was in the midst of trying to figure out whether he should move him so his breathing could be normalized when his best friend broke his concentration.

“So,” Rhodey started, “I never got to ask because FRIDAY gave us all a verbal death glare.”

Tony chuckled. He’d had his AI threaten to kick everyone out of the tower if they so much as looked at Peter wrong when he returned. No questions, no pointed looks, no nothing. It helped that he gave them an actual death glare when he stepped into the room, arm slung around the beaming kid’s shoulder partly to stop him from legitimately bouncing off the walls and partly because, honestly, the kid deserved some support for his accomplishment. It might have helped their case that Peter was so obviously feeling guilty when they finally ordered pizza that no one had the heart to tease him.

“What were you two doing that took almost an hour?”

“Oh,” said Tony, gazing fondly at the sleeping teenager next to him. “you know, just guy stuff.”

Rhodey rolled his eyes at the obvious deflection, but he was smiling.

If Peter stuck around late next Tuesday, at least Tony knew they wouldn’t have to wait an hour this time. The kid had gained the confidence to inject himself, surely it wouldn’t take that long again?

Maybe they could cut it down to 30 minutes.


End file.
